


Let Your Heart Fray to Pieces

by saunatonttu



Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Alternate Universe - Madoka Magica, Character Death, M/M, like lots of that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 17:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14170437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saunatonttu/pseuds/saunatonttu
Summary: If he can undo the events that have already occurred, then it doesn't matter what happens to him. This is what Lyon decided from the start.For better or for worse, he'll save the twins.





	Let Your Heart Fray to Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Me walking into this fandom with this AU:  
> 
> 
> Happy Easter! No one gets to be happy in this AU, lmao. (There will be a happy ending... kind of. Maybe.)
> 
> Buckle in, we're in for a long and sad ride. Main ships include Ephlyon and Eiritana, but some minor [onesided] Joshua/Lyon will also appear along the way. 
> 
> The rating of this fic might go up if the details end up being too gory for this rating, but we'll see how it goes.
> 
> Inspiration for the title of this fic came from AmaLee's English cover of "Magia".

“Bye.” Exhaustion was vivid in his voice, but not as heavy as in his bones. His brother must have noticed it too, because Knoll’s soft “Lyon?” was filled with concern as Lyon closed the front door behind him. Lyon had no strength to pay attention to Knoll’s worry, not now…

Lyon rushed down the stairs, three floors of them, inwardly counting the minutes he still had before those two would appear downstairs to meet with him.

Depending on how much Ephraim overslept today – Lyon hoped the answer to be _a lot_ , perhaps enough to miss the first class entirely.

A useless wish, really. Eirika would kick him awake if she had to – or Fado would, at the very least.

That was why Lyon had no time to waste.

*

He wasn’t strong nor did he have particularly great endurance. Physical education classes had always been painful, many accidents occurring that were shameful and embarrassing – Ephraim had initially teased him for it before it had become obvious that doing that did more harm than good.

Lyon had gotten a little stronger along the way, but his lungs still burned from the effort he put in to make it to the designated street corner on time. The phone in his pocket kept buzzing insistently, as it had done so numerous times before in similar situations. Lyon had learned to ignore it even through his reluctance to evoke concern in others.

The steady vibration against his thigh didn’t deter Lyon from his mission as he entered the abandoned warehouse – what is it with abandoned warehouses and evil entities, he wondered dully – and unzipped his bag to pull out the one gift his father had left behind for him, even if unintentionally.

The touch of steel in his once soft hand stirred him into full awareness, and he dropped his bag carelessly to the ground. The echo of the thud disappeared as soon as it had come.

“Fomortiis…” he whispered, a venomous feeling burning in his gut. “You have no need to hide.”

The soft paws walking in the direction to Lyon’s left sounded like small thunderstorms in Lyon’s ears – but this time they didn’t paralyze him.

If nothing else, he had learned to internalize his fear. For that, he could at least be thankful.

*

He made it to class just in time after hurriedly washing his hands clean of blood and gore as well as changing into his spare trousers. He kept forgetting what class it was – homeroom perhaps? – but the eager student in him refused to skip despite his current (unofficial, payless) side job as the incubator chaser. Not to mention, skipping would only do more harm than good in general.

Surrounded by people, both familiar and not at the same time, Lyon’s skin crawled with unease as he listened and searched for two specific voices. Well, three actually…

Anyone passing by his desk startled him, sending his heart to a futile race that it was never going to win. Lyon’s skittishness wasn’t a new phenomenon, had never been, but Lyon was still mildly surprised no one called him out on it. Benefits of being the hermit of this class, he supposed, even though he could never avoid attention as he was… friends with Ephraim and Eirika, both adored by the entire class for different reason.

Lyon had never been as good as them… he was so far away from their level, even now.

Picking up a book from his bag, which he presumed he had pushed in the previous night, Lyon did what he always did when he needed something to focus on rather than allow himself wallow in anxiety and self-loathing.

The novel did put him at ease even if the themes of dark fantasy hit too close to home. But that was the role of the reader, wasn’t it? To relish in the agony of the text, especially when it was relatable, while acknowledging that what was happening happened only in the novel. Even when his favourite suffered, Lyon could hold onto the hope that things would be fine, somehow.

Even when he knew his favourite was doomed to die, he at least had the chance to retrace that character’s life and choices through the pages. Pleasure tinted with the inevitable gloom.

Lyon licked at his thumb – grimacing when he remembered the blood that had coated his fingers before – and began to turn the page when a very familiar voice called his name. Lyon nearly dropped the book, only barely managing to hold onto it as he turned his wide-eyed gaze to his left. To Ephraim, Eirika, and the frowns on their faces.

Lyon tried not to remember. Tried not to look at Ephraim in the eye. And most importantly, tried to keep his voice soft and steady. “Ephraim, Eirika…”

He failed at that, his nervousness seeping out.

“Lyon…” Ephraim, always so touchy, rested his hand on his shoulder, silently forcing Lyon to meet his gaze. Such was his power over Lyon, whether he knew it or not. “Where were you earlier? We were waiting for you.”

Ephraim’s eyes stared at him, and Lyon clutched at the cover of the book in his arms, slumping a little in his seat. “I… I should have told you I was going ahead, yes…”

(The last time he saw Ephraim looking at him… Ephraim’s eyes glowed with much duller colour, with a weak fondness that still haunted Lyon.)

“Is everything alright?” Ephraim asked this more quietly, leaning into Lyon’s personal space so that their classmates couldn’t hear. Eirika looked on at them in worry. Even more softly, Ephraim murmured questioningly, “Your father?”

This exchange and interaction as familiar as Ephraim’s smiles, Lyon finally managed to pull himself together. “Yes, I… had to see him.”

He hadn’t, but it was a lie Ephraim and Eirika would take at a face value. A lie Lyon was disturbingly comfortable telling.

“You should have told us,” Eirika said softly from Ephraim’s side when Ephraim leaned away from Lyon’s personal space. “We would have gone with you.”

Lyon shook his head, relief flooding him when they believed him as usual. These two… trusted him so much. Just not when it mattered, though… never when it mattered. Lyon turned to put the book back in the bag If only to hide the look on his face.

“It’s fine… I wouldn’t want you to see me being pathetic.” He hadn’t visited the grave in a while, now that he thought about it. There were some things father shouldn’t have to see from wherever he was, too. Even though father probably was watching like a hawk if there was such a thing as afterlife.

Ephraim sounded stern when he spoke up again. “You’re never pathetic.”

Lyon smiled demurely when he managed to turn to his friends again. No tears came up anymore at these words. “If you say so.”

“Lyon-“

“Class is about to start,” Lyon interjected softly, “you two should sit down.” He threw an awkward glance at the girl sitting a few desks away from him. Her translucent green hair made his stomach churn – not because it looked odd, but because…

( _L’Arachel’s fingers pinching his face, her cheeks puffed. “Have a little more faith, Lyon! In us, who fight for good things and happiness of everyone.”)_

Feeling his stare, the young woman turned to him, her bright eyes peering at him with vivid curiosity that made Lyon tear his gaze away immediately, as if burned by her, as his fingers dug deep into the skin of his palm.

Eirika’s worried stare against the back of his neck burned twice as hot.

*

“My name is L’Arachel! My surname…? Oh, no, some things are better off staying secrets, don’t you think? If you want, you can call me L’Arachel the Courageous or such.” The wink she sent them had the entire class giggling at her antics. Lyon couldn’t find it in himself to smile, even if her behaviour was soothing and reassuring. Exceedingly familiar.

“Things I like? Comics! Oh, you know, it’s fascinating to see how they portray justice and right and wrong. I could talk about it for _hours…_ ” The homeroom teacher cleared her throat. “But I shall leave that for later, I suppose.” Another burst of laughter rippled across the room.

“Anyhow, it’s nice to meet you all.” L’Arachel’s eyes swept over Lyon and stared at someone behind him, her smile widening in delight. “I can’t wait to get to know you all better.”

Lyon bit at his lower lip hard enough for it to hurt.

*

L’Arachel might not be sitting next to Eirika, but she still found a way to talk to Eirika during the intervals between classes. Lyon saw this, but he couldn’t walk up to them and tell them to stop interacting – that kind of thing didn’t work, not even with Eirika, who was kind and perceptive of Lyon’s emotions and needs.

“You’re distracted today.” Lyon turned his gaze back to Ephraim, who had pushed their desks together as usual. Teachers no longer said anything about it – Ephraim was widely known to be a hopeless cause.

Ephraim peered at him curiously, which was much better than worry, and then that look changed into amusement in the blink of an eye. Lyon ignored the warmth of Ephraim’s smile and the memories of— “You interested, huh?”

“I… what?” Lyon blinked, confused.

“You’ve been staring at the new girl a lot. You interested in her?” Ephraim was again in Lyon’s personal space, staring at him with a teasing smile and twinkling eyes that already haunted Lyon’s dreams plenty. Lyon gave him the most deadpan stare he could manage in return.

Ephraim’s boyish grin just widened at that, and his hand took hold of Lyon’s. The warm touch sent a quiver through Lyon, which Ephraim appeared to not notice. “Thought as much.”

“Ephraim,” Lyon said, weaker than intended and with a pinched nose and downcurved mouth, “don’t joke like that.”

Ephraim’s fingers between his were warm and strong, and Lyon was tempted to pull away from such a welcoming, embracing touch. He had no strength or will to do so, though. As usual.

“Sorry, sorry.” Ephraim voice wavered with worry. “You know I mean nothing with my teasing.”

“Of course you don’t.” Lyon offered a forced smile to soothe him. The words combined with his actions were excessively fake. He hoped Ephraim wouldn’t notice… His eyes trailed back to Eirika and L’Arachel and the way both were smiling. Innocent smiles on two equally innocent people. “Don’t worry about it.”

Four words that tasted disgustingly salty and false on this tongue, but which he had told himself numerous times. To the point where he was numb to the taste of them.

 _Don’t worry about it._ _Just focus on what needs to be done._

*

He checked his phone during the lunch break when everyone else had gone down to the cafeteria while he had pretended to go to the washroom when in reality he had climbed to the roof. Five calls from Ephraim and Eirika, as expected, and ten worried texts asking where he was. Some texts from Knoll, as well.

 _Lyon, if there’s anything you want from the store, let me know._ A badly veiled promise to treat Lyon to his favourite dessert if Lyon so wished.

 _I’m visiting father’s grave in the afternoon. Let me know if you want to come with me._ Again, Knoll trying to remind him that he wasn’t alone.

But he was… more alone than he had ever been.

Lyon finished checking his messages and pushed the phone back into his pocket, his mind going carefully blank as he detailed the schedule for the rest of the day for himself. He had to, regardless of whether he could or not.

The sun’s warmth against his hair and skin didn’t do anything to help – if anything, Lyon wished it were raining instead. It could wash away the blood he still felt clinging to him, even though there was nothing visible to be seen.

He could still feel it, though. It wasn’t the incubator’s blood that he felt staining his skin, he couldn’t care less about that.

Lyon swallowed down his anxiety, clinging to the apathy he had harnessed over time, and stopped rubbing at his arms. They wouldn’t be cleansed that way.

His phone buzzed again, and Lyon took it out numbly only to see a text from Eirika.

_We’ve saved a seat for you, so please come eat._

He glanced at the sky painted a brilliant turquoise blue like Ephraim and Eirika’s hair. So beautiful, and so far above him… Lyon inhaled. If they were the sky, then what was he…

Lyon returned his gaze to the screen of his phone and typed a short-worded reply.

*

Starting over was the hardest part in this game, when his mind still replayed the images of the previous playthroughs. He had done this… countless times, but still, still he had trouble bouncing back.

And the loud noises in the cafeteria did nothing to ease him back into the daily life. If anything, Lyon’s recent bouts of headaches were starting to manifest again as he was forced to listen to the incessant chatter around his and his friends’ table.

He wasn’t hungry to begin with, but his inability to deny the twins these things was a force stronger than himself.

(If he just kept them happy… if he obliged them… they wouldn’t make such a choice, right…?)

L’Arachel was with them, which only agitated Lyon’s nerves more. Up close, she was as bright and bubbly as ever, spouting nonsense that Lyon found more irritating than charming now. Even his patience had its limits, and overstimulation hardly helped.

Lyon listened to Eirika and L’Arachel in silence, idly pushing food back and forth on his plate with the fork. L’Arachel was talking nonsense now, something about their previous classes, her voice high and joyful. Eirika laughed. Ephraim snorted, saying something that passed Lyon’s ears.

Their voices were warm. Ephraim’s hand in his was even warmer.

Why was Ephraim holding his hand... Lyon hadn’t noticed. But Ephraim’s hand around his, their fingers entwined, pulled him back to the moment.

Lyon tentatively squeezed it. Ephraim responded easily, and Lyon felt his face flush, now entirely too aware of the weight of the hand around his. It wasn’t new. He ought to be used to it. It ought to not affect him – Ephraim ought to not affect him anymore, but there he was.

“You okay?” Ephraim murmured to him while Eirika and L’Arachel carried on with their conversation. “You haven’t eaten a thing, and you look ill.”

Ephraim’s voice came close to his ear, and his nose dug into Lyon’s hair. All the outside noise faded away in that moment under Ephraim’s obvious affections.

 _Ah,_ Lyon thought distantly, _I forgot how obvious he was from the very beginning._

“I feel a little ill,” he admitted softly as Ephraim’s palm pressed up against his comfortingly. Ephraim had always been physical with affection, not shying away from giving it even when Lyon was awful at receiving. Lyon had gotten a little better at it at some point – before regressing badly.

Now… now, he should refuse it, but like a flower that had been in the dark too long, he just wished to drink in all the light from Ephraim’s kindness.

“Mm. Want me to take you to the nurse’s office?”

“You’re still eating… I can go by myself.” Realizing that that would mean leaving Ephraim and Eirika alone with L’Arachel, he added, “And it’s not bad enough to warrant a visit there, I think.” Even if his headache was worsening as time progressed.

Ephraim’s sigh drowned in Lyon’s hair. Lyon barely heard over the chatter around the cafeteria and his own heartbeat. “You’ve looked like you’re about to collapse all morning. No way I’m going to believe that.”

Lyon would have protested then, but Ephraim was already helping him up and apologizing to Eirika and L’Arachel with a curt “Gotta take him to see the nurse”, at which both girls just nodded. 

Lyon grimaced at the look of worry Eirika gave him, only managing a somewhat comforting smile when her brows creased further as he and Ephraim took their trays and went to return the cutlery and to toss the uneaten food away. Lyon’s head remained low throughout, lips thin once he no longer had to smile to comfort anyone and now that he couldn’t feel the warmth of a warm hand holding his.

*

Once outside the cafeteria and in the semi-empty hallways, Ephraim took his hand again, though this time Lyon tried to pull back and away from the contact.

“You don’t need to lead me like a child, Ephraim.” They were still teenagers, but children they were not. “I can follow you just fine.”

Ephraim hand didn’t let go of his, though. His eyes didn’t shy away from meeting Lyon’s steadily, slight confusion written all over them. “Don’t be silly. That’s not why I’m holding your hand.”

Lyon inhaled. Exhaled. Things were already going wrong if he couldn’t deny Ephraim (or most importantly, himself) this. “We’re not kids. You don’t…”

“I’m not babying you,” Ephraim interjected, squeezing Lyon’s hand and entering Lyon’s personal space with two short steps. “If I were, I’d be…” His free hand cupped Lyon’s face, a thumb running over Lyon’s cheekbone. “…doing this.”

Lyon swallowed thickly at the look on Ephraim’s face – intense care obvious in every detail of his expression – and tried not to grimace at the familiar warmth burning in his chest at Ephraim’s affection. Why was it so hard to escape it...?

Lyon was so damn weak. Pitifully weak.

But still strong enough to turn his head to look away just when Ephraim looked like he was about to lean down to close the distance between them.

Over the silence of this empty hallway, Lyon’s heartbeats sounded like thunder in his own ears.

“Let’s just… go to the nurse’s office already,” he said softly in resignation as he squeezed Ephraim’s hand, whose heat was as painful as it was comforting.  

Ephraim exhaled, and Lyon’s stomach twisted at the odd tone in Ephraim’s voice. “Alright.”

*

A few minutes later, Lyon finally gathered his courage to open his mouth again. It still took a bit to get his voice out as this was as close to honesty he could allow himself to be with Ephraim for now.

“Hey…” he managed, heart pounding when Ephraim hummed. Unable to look in his direction, Lyon continued, “You know… that I can deal with my own problems, right?”

Ephraim’s hand held his tighter at Lyon’s words. For a moment, the only sounds echoing off the walls were their footsteps. Until Ephraim sighed, a resigned sound that made Lyon frown.

“I… I know that, Lyon.” Ephraim looked at him, Lyon felt his eyes on him, but Lyon couldn’t return the gaze without revealing too much of himself. “It’s not that I don’t believe in you. It’s just that I know you’re the type to shoulder too much alone if it means not bothering other people.”

Lyon swallowed.

Ephraim’s voice didn’t waver, it was as strong and confident as ever – but it was gentle, too, much gentler than Lyon had been prepared for.

Lyon should have chosen another time for this conversation. A time when he wouldn’t be as vulnerable as right now, when any act of kindness from Ephraim could tear him to pieces.

“If you think I’m treating you like glass,” Ephraim continued, this time with a slight tremor to his voice, “I’m not. I just want you to rely on me a little more like… like friends ought to.”

Lyon stayed silent, contemplating those words with a heavy feeling strangling him. That answer would never change, even if Lyon were to distance himself from Ephraim. At worst, Ephraim’s dedication to him would lead…

The heavy feeling turned into gloomy dread as he remembered how little Ephraim’s words in their last moments ever changed.

“Ephraim,” he said. He could manage a steady voice, even if he couldn’t force any joy into it anymore. Be strong, Lyon, he told himself. _This is where you can’t falter._ “Friends also back off when they need to.”

“Guess I’m a little too headstrong about that,” Ephraim mused. His fingers tightened around Lyon’s, not to the point where it hurt, as if Ephraim was afraid to let go. Lyon couldn’t understand that – if anyone was truly afraid, it was him… “I’ll… try? But you have to promise to come to me if you ever need anything.”

Lyon never liked lying straight to Ephraim’s face, but he was used to it.

“I will,” he promised softly, a lie on top of other lies he was already making and planning on making.

*

[0]

It was an exaggeration to say that the whole city lay in ruins, but it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that whatever remained didn’t matter to Lyon in the least.

Eirika… Eirika was somewhere in the rubble, possibly sandwiched between L’Arachel and Tana.

And Ephraim was…

…coughing blood on Lyon’s lap.

It was hard to make out his face through the tears that blinded Lyon, but perhaps it was for the best to not see the pain Ephraim was in.

“L… Lyon…” Ephraim’s strangled voice only made the tears run faster.

Lyon’s hands shook as they desperately pressed against the grave wound on Ephraim’s chest. The blood coating them was slick and horrifyingly warm – Lyon felt bile rise in his throat at the feeling. If there was anything that could rise in his choked-up throat.

Why…?

Why had this…?

**Author's Note:**

> me: eh it's gonna be ephlyon but it's not like it's gonna be that obvious  
> Ephraim, drives me over with his Mustang: move, I'm gay
> 
> (I did not expect that much handholding. Good job, Eph.)
> 
> Edit: Also big thanks to my friend Emil, who is the real reason this AU became a thing.


End file.
